


Road to Recovery

by an_avacado



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insomnia, Kazekage Gaara (Naruto), Minor Nara Shikamaru/Temari, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Recovery, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27769522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_avacado/pseuds/an_avacado
Summary: The Chunin exams have ended, and the Sand returns home. Gaara is trying to change, but it's hard, and his siblings are understandably still afraid of him. Can their relationship be repaired? Or will Gaara be left to fight alone.An exploration of the Sand Siblings relationship in the two years between the Chunin exams and Shippuden.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	1. Insomnia

Gaara was well accustomed to the feeling of being alone in the dark for hours on end, well, as ‘alone’ as he could be with Shukaku in his mind.

But ever since the Chunin exams, things had been different. Normally he’d spend his nights bathing in visions of blood, soothing the demon inside him with promises of death soon to come. Now though, now, Gaara didn’t want that. For the first time in years he was having to actively fight back against the screaming, writhing, monster in his head. And it was exhausting, even more than usual.

It had been easier when he was complying with the demons demands, its words had been at least somewhat coherent.

“Blood! Give me blood! Quickly!

“Tear him limb from limb. I want to see him gush like a fountain!”

“More, more, more, more die!”

Its words had only served to push him further, and he rarely resisted its demands.

Now, it knew something had changed. When it screamed for blood Gaara no longer moved to supply it, and it was infuriated.

The sentences devolved into screams, animalistic growls and wails. Sometimes it got so bad Gaara felt as though he were a glass jar desperately trying to contain a hurricane within, and at any moment, he would break.

And it got worse at night. During the day he could listen to people talk around him, he could focus on his training, maybe even have one or two interactions that didn't end in disaster. And these moments help to drown out the noise of an angry Bijuu, push its screams to the back of his mind.

At night he had nothing to distract him from it. Even the noise of crickets died when he was near, perhaps feeling the bloodlust of the monster before them.

So his nights became...very difficult.

The physical toll that his many, many sleepless nights had on his body was becoming worse as well, his limbs felt more sluggish than usual, his eyes burned and at practically all hours a headache would be hammering merrily away at his skull. Maybe that was Shukaku trying to smash its way out of him, who knows.

Two months since the Chunin exams, two months of struggling to keep it together. Inevitably the consequences of wrestling to keep the demons' urges crammed down deep inside, struck.

It happened during training, one of the many unbearably awkward, few hour long sessions which mostly consisted of Baki training Temari, while Kankuro tinkered with his puppets, and Gaara himself mostly just observing. Occasionally Temari and Kankuro would spar with each other or with sensei, but they never asked for him to participate, and he never offered.

It was during one of these sessions where Gaara was perched on a large boulder, knees drawn to his chest and fingers digging into his ankles. He was watching as Temari attempted to give her wind slices more precision, trying to minimize the energy lost in her strikes by focusing all of it on a single point.

He was only half paying attention. The headache that he had carried with him was increaseing in intensity, and Temari's frustrated yells were not helping. He squeezed his eyes shut. Logically he knew that tearing his eyes from their sockets would not help his pain but the throbbing agony that pulsated behind them was pleading for him to do so anyway.

He settled on lifting his hands up to grind the heels of his palms into his eyes. Maybe not the best course of action, but better than his former thought.

The pressure didn’t help though, and instead he felt a dizzying wave pass over him, ferocious in its intensity. And then nothing.

He snapped up. Everything was blurry, he couldn't see, the world was spinning. And then movement in his peripheral vision, a shinobi, someone here to hurt him, to kill him, father sent them, they're going to try and kill me, kill, kill, kill, kill them before they can hurt me!

His sand stopped an inch from Kankuro’s face.

It was sharpened to a point, ready to skewer whoever the unfortunate ninja sent to kill him this time was.

Kankuro..he looked terrified.

He was on his knees, hands in a position that looked like they had been about to reach out to Gaara, dark eyes wide with fear, flicking between the hardened sand in front of him and his brother below.

“Gaara?”

Oh. oh. He had passed out.

It happened sometimes, when his body reached its absolute limit, he hated it with a passion, hated the terror of not knowing if Shukaku had taken over in his sleep. Over the years he discovered that the demon generally needed at least three hours of Gaara being unconscious before it could take over, but Gaara hated the vulnerability, and the possibility that his body would betray him and sleep more than the three hours he could risk. So he stayed awake.

But sometimes things like this happened where his body would refuse to function. It..had never happened in front of his siblings before. And the look on Kankuro's face made his stomach clench.

His sand dropped to the ground, retreating from his brother with a hiss of movement.

“Kankuro!”

The voice of his sister cut through the silence, pitched high with fear. She too must have been frozen up until the moment Gaara dropped his sand.

Gaara pushed himself away, back hitting the rock he had been sitting on a moment ago.

Self loathing filled his mind, laced with the hysterical laughter of Shukaku. He did not want his sibling to fear him anymore. He didn’t want to be the one who put that look of fear on their faces, who saw their lives as inconsequential. Who would kill them without a second thought.

He didn’t want that.

The past two months had not exactly been good. But he had not threatened them even once. He had not shed a drop of blood, and he followed his sensei's every direction to the letter. He had been trying.

But now he had messed it all up. He almost hurt his brother, scared them both, made them think he was the same monster all over again, that he would kill them.

And suddenly it all felt so fruitless, pressure built up behind his eyes again, stinging this time instead of pounding.

He had to...he had to try, one last desperate push to stop him from tumbling over the edge of hopelessness.

Temari had made it to Kankuro's side, helping him to his feet, and as if in slow motion, made a move to turn and walk away.

“I..I’m sorry!”

It came out gasped, strangled. The words awkward and stumbling as they fell from his lips.

Temari gaped at him, mouth open like a fish, eyes utterly unbelieving, and a little accusatory. Kankuro...looked strange. Gaara was not very good at reading the emotions of others and he had no hope of identifying what it was that ran across his brother's face right now.

Temari lifted her hand and grabbed Kankuro’s wrist, tugging slightly to pull him away from Gaara’s curled up form still pressed against the stone. But he didn’t budge, didn’t even look at her. She made a noise of question. But his eyes were still locked on Gaara's pained turquoise, searching for something.

“It's fine.”

It was said so quietly that Gaara was almost certain it had been a figment his mind had created from the noise of the wind and the sand. But then Kankuro broke his gaze and turned his eyes to his sister who looked back with confusion, before turning and heading back to his puppets, a clear sign that this moment, whatever it was, was over.

Temari followed him, and they both began to gather their things to leave, Gaara didn’t move until they were long gone, muscles wound tight in his body. He wasn’t sure if Kankuro's words were forgiveness exactly, but they weren’t rejection, and that had to be enough.

His siblings lived in the Kazekage's home, alone now that their father was dead, and Gaara lived near the edge of the village, alone as well. He had been separated from them for as long as he could remember, and once Yashamaru..died, he had no one. He wondered if his siblings felt alone now that their father was gone too.

He sat on the roof, staring at the moon as he attempted to block out Shukaku's howls.

It had changed tactics because of the incident in the afternoon, reverting from its nonsensical screams to something so much worse, taunting.

“His blood, his blood, I will have it!”

“Fall, fall, fall asleep, wake up in their blood!”

He heard something. Footstep on the sand, a fox? Some creature looking for a late night snack?

Gaara pushed himself up to look and immediately shrank back, people. Two figures approaching his house, he couldn’t make out their faces in the dark and the irrational part of his mind screamed assassins for the second time that day.

It would be best to stay still and hope they passed him by whoever they were, a confrontation would only lead to bloodshed.

When the figures were only a few meters from his doorstep he recognized them, his siblings? But what were they doing here in the middle of the night? What were they doing here at all?

They were in front of his door now, Temari had her hand carefully raised and she gently rapped on the door with a quiet, “Gaara?”

For a minute Gaara contemplated staying silent and letting them just give up and leave. But then he remembered that look that had been on his brother's face, he had been trying, it would be unfair of him to ignore them after that.

So his sand began to swirl and within a second he was standing before his siblings.

Temari yelped in surprise and whirled to face him, body angled defensively, subtly blocking Kankuro from him.

He didn’t say anything, simply waiting to see what they would do.

Kankuro's hand fell on Tamaris shoulder, and he walked past her towards Gaara. He stopped about four feet away from him and held out a bowl, it was covered by tinfoil and Gaara cocked his head at it.

“It's for you. Chicken soup. You passed out during training today, I know it was probably because you can’t sleep very much, but you need good food if you want to have a shot at keeping yourself awake.”

Gaara squinted at him. His siblings..had come all the way to his home, in the middle of the night, to bring him food?

“You, you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.”

His previously confident voice was now coloured with trepidation, but his hands remained outstretched.

Should he take it? Barely two months ago he would have just turned away with a scoff, maybe even slapping the bowl out of his hands. It could be poisoned, perhaps they were trying to get rid of him, it would be smart, to kill him without the threat of his sand.

He reached out and took it.

It was still warm. He looked up and for the second time that day his siblings were staring at him unreadably.

“Thank you.”

It was quiet and subdued but he couldn’t think of anything better to say in the face of such a strange act.

“You’re welcome Gaara, see you tomorrow.”

And then they were gone. Standing outside his house at three in the morning, Gaara pulled the foil off of the bowl, stared down at the warm contents within and brought it up to his lips. It tasted good, really good. All the food he made for himself tended to be either burnt, underdone, and either over or under seasoned.

It was just lukewarm chicken soup. But he cradled the bowl to his chest anyway.

Maybe...maybe he could do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My interpretation of Gaara's ability to sleep is pretty headcannon-y, but him being able to sleep for a short amount of time works better for my story so that's what we're going with.
> 
> Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you want ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧


	2. Reaching Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who read the first chapter!
> 
> Especially those of you who left kudos, y'all are the best (〃ﾟ3ﾟ〃)

It was the day after the incident. Well no, calling it an incident made it sound like a bad thing, which it wasn’t. Not really, granted it wasn’t really a good thing either it was...a bad thing with a good ending.

The point was, his siblings had reached out to him, and he was feeling, stressed.

He needed to do something to show them that he was thankful that they were trying to reach out to him, and he was going to be better, and he didn’t want to kill them anymore. He supposed he could just tell them all that. But frankly he wasn’t very good with words. Or conversations. It was more likely that he would say something wrong and scare them. So that was out the window.

That line of thought is what led him to leave his home in the early morning, determined to do something he almost never did. Go down to the marketplace.

Gaara’s food and supplies were provided by the council, his food was dropped off once a week, and his general supplies once a month. He was also allowed a very small amount of money once a month as well. But the point of bringing him these things, other than keeping their weapon alive, was to keep him from needing to interact with the villagers, and avoid the unnecessary death that would surely follow.

Because of this, Gaara had not been anywhere that was not his home, the training fields, or mission briefings in a long time.

He clenched his handful of bills as he walked, anxiety rising.

He had been saving the small amount of money he was granted every month for almost six years. Not for any particular reason, he simply hadn't had anything he wanted to spend it on. But now it had a purpose.

It was a conclusion he had reached after much internal debate about what he could do to express his feelings. Unfortunately his years of isolation were crippling him, and he was unable to think of a single thing he could do for his siblings. Until he remembered the sensation of warmth in his hands, a full stomach, and a grateful heart.

Perhaps it would be pathetic to simply copy their gesture of goodwill, but it was the best idea he could come up with.

He couldn’t cook well at all, so any of his own food was out of the question.

He had been stuck on what to do when a memory resurfaced, foggy and half forgotten, he must have only been four or five, hiding as he watched kids his own age crowd around a marketplace stall.

“Mister! Mister! Want please!”

“Now, now Miyoshi, full sentences, what do we say when we want something? May I…”

“May I please have a date? Please, please!

The old man bent down and handed the boy one and he went scurrying off with a shriek of glee that sent the rest of the children clamoring for their turn.

“Me too! Me too!”

It was perfect. Dates were relatively small, easy to carry and eat, and sweet, something that he knew most people liked. Gaara was not most people, he personally despised sweet foods and gravitated towards savory tastes, but all he could do was hope his taste buds weren’t hereditary. This was the perfect peace offering.

So, here he was, heading straight to the heart of the village. Ignoring the glares of adults, the anger and fear in their eyes, furious whispers, the whines of children as they were pushed out of his way, curiosity brewing as to the cause of their parents' strong reactions.

He was only half paying them any mind however, too busy scanning the stalls for his prize. He had no idea where to look so it took a while, but eventually he spotted it, a cart full to the brim with ripe dates.

He turned approaching the stall, the man selling them watched as he did so, apprehension and disgust clear on his face.

He was standing in front of him now, arms crossed, clearly blocking the way to his goods.

“What do you want.” he snapped.

Gaara was by no means an expert in social interactions, but he thought it should be fairly obvious what he wanted.

“Dates.”

He held out his money as proof of his next statement.

“I can pay.”

The man looked down at his outstretched hand, anger still prevalent but something else crossing his features, his face melted into a slimy smile before moving back to his cart.

“How many?

“Four”

The dates were placed in a paper bag and handed to him.

“How much?”

There was a beat of silence before the man answered, just a little too emphatically.

“Fifty.”

Gaara stared at the man wondering if he misheard for a moment. Fifty? That was over five times what the cost should be. He wondered if he should remind the man how many were in his bag, perhaps he had forgotten- then all of a sudden it clicked. He was being overcharged, because he was the demon. It was almost brave, with Gaara's reputation and all.

Anger welled up in his heart and his sand whipped lightly around his feet in response to it.

Shukaku snarled for death, to take what he wanted, who was this man to look him in the eye and demand what was not his, he should be groveling for his life! He should-

His sand froze and he felt sick, the man had sweat dripping down his face, clearly terrified of the bloodlust radiating off of him. Gaara lifted his shaking hand and slammed the money down on the cart, turning on his heel and practically running away.

Making it back to his home he pried his fingers off of the paper bag, cramping from how hard he had been clenching his fist.

He felt even more shaken than yesterday. Because, back at the market... it had been him that wanted to kill that man. Not Shukaku. Well, the demon would not have opposed. But that surge of anger and hatred, that need to destroy, that had been him.

His mind had been trying so desperately for the last couple of months to separate himself from the demon within him. But now he could see what was really happening. His teeth grit together. He had only been trying to push the blame onto Shukaku!

It didn’t matter why it happened. He had killed people. His hands were soaked with blood. The souls of the dead clung to him like a foul odor. There was no escaping it. He was a monster.

A whirlwind of sand had begun to whip around him as his thoughts escalated. A thud drew him out of it and he looked over at the noise, sand calming. The dates.

The bag had been knocked to the floor by his sand.

Proof. They were proof. He was a monster, but he was trying. There would be no point in despairing in the fact, not when he had so much to atone for. He didn’t have the luxury to fail.

He glanced at the clock, it was almost time to go.

The walk to training was nerve racking. He had gone over what he had to do in his head a hundred times but he still couldn’t find a way that felt right.

What if they had changed their minds and wanted to go back to not interacting with him?

Or if they caught on to the fact that he was basically imitating them with the offer of food, would they laugh? Turn him away? Maybe he had been reading into things too much and they had just happened to have some chicken soup left that they didn’t want to dump so they gave it to him, like a stray cat.

His feet brought him to the training grounds regardless, and while part of him wanted to just leave, he knew he couldn’t. He did not go through his second freak out in two days just to chicken out at the last second.

He spotted his siblings, Temari was polishing her fan and Kankuro was sprawled out on the sand, bored expression on his face, sensei hadn’t made it there yet he guessed.

It was now or never then.

Instead of making his way to his usual perch he cautiously walked over to his siblings, doing his best to make his movements clear and non threatening. He took a breath and his mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

“..Hi Gaara.”

Temari had a slightly weirded out expression on her face, glancing between him and the paper bag a few times.

“What’s up?”

Kankuro had sat up, clearly curious at Gaara’s strange behavior.

“I..I just..”

God his voice sounded to him like nails on a chalkboard, come on just do it.

“I wa- wanted to thank you. For yesterday? The, the food I mean. I don’t know if you like them but I got some dates and I just thought.. If you wanted, you could have them?

He promptly shut his mouth and held out the bag.

That was a complete and utter mess, but actually doing it had been so much harder than imagining it in his head. So much more nerve wracking to actually have their eyes on him while he fumbled through his sentences.

Damn it. He had not been like this just a few months ago, but it wasn’t surprising really, why would he have been nervous talking to people if he could just kill them for looking at him wrong.

Kankuro was the one to reach out and take the bag, and he was already looking at his eyes when Gaara dragged them up from the sand to meet him.

“Thank you Gaara, that’s really nice of you.”

And maybe it was a platitude, but Gaara didn’t care, his heart soared. He felt warmth flow through him again, filling him with emotion just like lukewarm chicken soup. He took it, he thanked him, he even had a ghost of a smile as he said it.

Despite the struggles, today felt like the best day of his life.

Temari pulled out a date and side eyed Gaara.

“Did you buy these at the market?”

He nodded, his throat felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of his sand, there was no way any words were getting past it right now.

She nodded as well, contemplation clear on her face before she took a large bite of the date, mind clearly made up. Mouth still full, she looked up and gave him a genuine smile.

“S’ good.”

Yes. This was definitely the best day of his life.

He had thought that would be it for the day. He could breathe, he had done it. No more interacting. No more delicate relationships to protect like a weak, sputtering flame.

But then Temari had thrown him for a loop. About halfway into their training, she turned to him and said.

“Hey Gaara! Wanna train with me?”

His heart rate spiked. Train? With Temari? Was she mocking him, it didn’t appear so, she was just standing there looking at him steadily. A quick glance at Kankuro showed him to be just as shocked.

Should he say no? He didn’t want to put himself in the position where he could accidentally hurt her. But he didn’t want to destroy the little progress he had made either, he worked too hard for it!

So he nodded and Temari smiled again, walking over with no hesitation, it was probably a show now that he thought about it, she must be covering her fear with this facade of confidence.

“Don’t look at me like that, you’ve been different recently haven’t you?”

Gaara startled, this was a completely different side of his sister, he had seen her act like this with others but never with him. His eyes caught movement and that’s when he realized her hands were shaking. She was afraid. It must be taking so much effort to treat him like this. As if he were a normal person.

“I’ve..been trying.” He admitted.

If Temari could put herself this far out there, he could tell her the truth.

She hummed.

“Well, we should train together then, no point in you sitting on that rock all day. There’s got to be something you want to work on isn’t there?”

The feeling of being slammed to the ground. The overwhelming speed and strength. The pure adrenaline. Flashes of green.

“Taijutsu. I want to get better at Taijutsu.”

Temari nodded again.

“Well then show me your fighting stance.”

He stared at her. Uncomprehendingly.

She sighed.

“We’ll start there then.”

Gaara was more sore than he had ever been, other than after the Chunin exams. After Temari had shown him what a proper fighting stance looked like she had immediately set him into a rapid fire drill of push ups, squats, sit ups, jumping jacks, and some hell spawned abomination called burpees. It was horrific.

But he had done them all. She told him that the first step to Taijutsu was making the body itself into a weapon, then he could start learning to wield it. Part of him was starting to reconsider his decision to pursue this.

Maybe he would have just quit, if it hadn’t been for the fact that as she taught him, Temari became more and more relaxed. For the sound of Kankuro’s laugh when he face planted into the sand after he was finally released from his torture.

They made it worth it, he would subject himself to anything if it meant he could keep this. Hold it close to his heart. He didn’t know how long it would last. How long till they realized what he was. But, he chose to be selfish.

He was going to revel in this newfound joy for however long he was allowed to have it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to have my first chaptered work out there. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> I'm going to try and update this every weekend but midterms are coming up so we'll see.
> 
> Have a beautiful day or night, whichever ❤️


	3. Words Are Hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is indeed a reference to how long this took me to write.

Most of the time Gaara was alone. Long stretches of night, and oftentimes much of the day was spent in his own company, the demon notwithstanding. The point is, he didn’t have much occasion to speak most of the time. 

Conversations and all their nuances were a mystery to him. In the past he really didn't care to try and adapt to the fickle world around him, everyone changed their behavior to suit him, and that was good enough. 

It wasn't good enough anymore. 

It had been an excruciating week. Don’t get him wrong he was so unbelievably happy that his siblings were even tolerating his presence, let alone going out of their way to include him in their lives.. but it had become exceedingly clear to him that he had no idea what he was doing.

He felt like an alien when speaking to his siblings. Kankuro would say something to him only to look at him uncomfortably when Gaara questioned what he meant. (He realized later it had meant to be a joke). 

Temari would ask him about his day and he would respond with a list of his daily activities. She hadn’t said anything negative to that, but her face had pinched like she was in pain before he was even halfway done with his list. (Evidently the phrase “how was your day” is often rhetorical).

It was too much. He knew that he was failing to interact normally but he didn’t know how to change it.

There were too many rules, too many ways to mess up. Tone, facial expressions, sarcasm, humor. He would talk too much for one situation or too little for another, he didn’t know where to laugh or to nod and hum, he didn’t know when to look shocked or sympathetic or happy.

This new anxiety had been eating him up all week. It had practically become his new obsession.

Every night he would replay the day's interactions in his mind and analyze his mistakes, what did his facial expression mean? Why did she say that? Did I make him mad? 

He sought out his mistakes and dissected them like a mad scientist, desperately trying to cram years of missed social development into his brain as fast as possible. 

He had to, it was obvious, even to him, that his behavior was weirding his siblings out. 

If he couldn't make himself be normal what reason could they have to still want him around?

A coil of fear had been growing in his belly, tightening a little more every day. Today was the day it traveled up from his stomach and constricted around his throat.

Baki had asked him a question, something simple, nothing he would normally have trouble answering even with his anxieties, but it was like a floodgate had been opened and every negative thought he had had piled on him. He couldn’t stop messing up, stupid, useless, he can’t even answer an easy question without being a nuisance. 

His sensei was staring at him, clearly waiting for an answer. Gaara couldn’t even tell what the expression on his face was.

Was it anger? Oh god he was angry he screwed up what if he removed him from training after this, he didn’t want to leave his siblings, please.

His throat was closing up and his limbs felt like lead, the fear was so strong, he felt like he was in danger but he knew he wasn’t, what was happening?

Kankuro’s hand was on his shoulder and he was pulling him away.

Shit did he think he was going to attack their sensei? 

His voice cut through the panic, “Are you okay? Gaara, hey, look at me.”

He did, letting out a shaky breath as he did so. 

“What’s happening man, are you feeling stressed? You need some water?”

Water, water was good, water was not talking. He nodded slightly and Kankuro pulled out his water flask sitting them both on the ground as he did so, Temari hovered between sensei and and the two of them seemingly unsure of what to do.

The water was nice, he had hoped it would serve to release the knot around his throat but it didn’t. At least it was cool, and a distraction. 

“Are you alright?”

Again, such a simple question, but despite him opening his mouth to answer nothing came out. 

He glanced at Baki and the mans expression was harsh, irritated, why couldn’t he just get it together?

Temari must have seen something on his face. That was something he admired about his sister, when she decided on a course of action she had no hesitation in completing it. 

“Sensei can we have the rest of the day off? I think it would be better for all of us.”

Her green eyes stared unwaveringly at the older man till he finally scoffed and turned his back to them. “I want to see you here by five in the morning tomorrow. We’ll make up for lost time then.”

“Yes sensei.”

It only took a few minutes for him to be completely out of sight, Temari turned and crouched beside Kankuro. 

Instead of questioning him like Kankuro she simply stared at him, apparently deep in thought. Gaara felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny but his mouth stayed firmly shut.

“Kankuro help me out”

She was up, pulling something out of her bag.

“Huh, with what?”

“What does it look like.”

She threw him one corner of a tent, it was shinobi grade, used by Sand ninja for shelter from the sun or sandstorms. They made quick work of pitching it as Gaara nervously looked on.

Temari held the flap open gesturing at him and Kankuro, “Get in.”

They both obeyed and all three siblings found themselves sitting cross legged in a tent in the middle of a training field. 

“Temari wha-”

“Shush, Gaara can I have your sash?”

He blinked at her, what could she possibly need that for? He gave it to her anyway.

Taking the white fabric she gently folded it, once, twice, three times, continuing until she had a square which she placed on the ground. She then patted the ground. 

“C’mon, lay down.” 

Once again he was left staring. Why?

It was like she could read his mind, quickly answering his thoughts. “You're obviously stressed out and I'm gonna make you relax, come on trust me.”

He did trust her, maybe it was foolish but he did. So he gingerly placed his head on his bundled up sash and curled on his side, if this was supposed to make him relax Temari was sorely mistaken. He felt like an awkwardly placed doll, all limbs and wide expressionless eyes.

“I’m going to touch you okay? Just tap my leg if you want me to stop.”

He barely had time to properly absorb the meaning of the words before he felt a gentle touch to his hair. 

He tensed, his whole body rigid. 

Touch didn’t mean good things, touch meant pain. Touch meant pain and fear and blood. 

But none of that was happening. It actually, actually felt kind of nice. The tent was silent aside from the occasional sound of the wind blustering outside and the gentle breaths the three of them were letting out. 

Then it started. Very quietly at first, almost unnoticeable, quiet humming, a few notes becoming a pattern and a distinguishable tune. It was some lullaby, Gaara had no idea how he knew that but he did. 

It was relaxing, calming, and the tight loop that had had such a hold on him loosened. And in its absence a wave of new emotion crashed into him.

Gratefulness, sadness, he had done nothing to deserve this, he wasn’t worth this. 

Tears spilled down his cheeks silently. Neither of his siblings reacted besides the small stutter in Temari’s humming. 

He cried until he had no more in him.

He felt numb and tired, loose limbed. But calm at least. 

Temari had stopped humming but was still running her hand through his hair, he reached out and tapped her knee and she pulled away.

“Are you feeling any better?”

He nodded, his throat didn’t feel constricted but he was still nervous that he would try and say something and nothing would come out. 

Kankuro spoke up for the first time since entering the tent. “You wanna tell us about it?”

They were so kind, they were so kind and wonderful and amazing, to even have the energy to try and care about how he’s feeling. He owed them so much, just speaking can’t be that hard just answer them.

“I- I’m sorry I don’t know..why, that happened.”

His voice came out as a whisper but it was better than nothing. 

“Don’t apologize, you're okay.” 

He flinched at that, ‘don't apologize’, he already messed up.

Temari cocked her head at him, her scrutinizing eyes felt like they could see right through him.

“Gaara are you..feeling nervous about talking?”

His eyes widened, she had hit the nail on the head first try, she really was amazing. There was no way he would ever be able to understand someone so thoroughly through just their body language, not in a million years.

“Yes I-.”

His nails worried at his palm as he forced the words out.

“I'm having a..hard time with..” He gestured vaguely. “Understanding what to, what to say? I don’t know when to, to talk or not to, or when y-you are making jokes I don’t know what to do and I’m sorr-”

His jaw snapped shut and he grit his teeth.

“I..don’t want to be a..a burden to you.”

He cringed, maybe they hadn’t realized how annoying he was before but now they had it all laid out in front of them. They would be perfectly justified in dropping him, in kicking him out of their lives. He couldn’t say they were wrong if they did. 

His heart rate was back up. 

“Oh little brother, is that it?”

He snapped his head up to look at Kankuro, little brother? He..he had never been called that before. 

“You don’t have to worry about that at all. It can be hard to talk to people and figure out what they mean, but you can just ask us, we won’t get mad. Promise.” 

He stuck his pinky finger out at Gaara and he looked to Temari in confusion. 

“It’s to seal a promise, you lock your pinky fingers together and that means you can’t break it.”

His shaky hand reached out and he locked his pinky finger together with Kankuros. “It’s a promise” He sing-songed before letting go. 

“And if you’re ever feeling overwhelmed,” Temari chimed in, “we can make up a signal that means you need to stop talking.”

She raised a hand to her chin and mused for a moment before snapping her fingers. 

“Got it! How about this?” She lifted her right arm and made a fist with the thumb over the knuckles. The shinobi hand sign for hold, or stop. It was perfect. 

Gaara mimicked her, “Yeah..I think, that could maybe help.”

His sister smiled brightly at this and he couldn’t help but duck his head, feeling ashamed for his overreaction. 

“Thank you for letting us help you Gaara.”

He nodded, not entirely sure what she meant by that but too exhausted to attempt to understand. 

He needed some time to reflect on this. His siblings were acting like he was normal, like he was someone deserving of empathy, it didn’t make any sense, but he wasn’t going to stop them.

If they chose to show him kindness he wouldn’t complain, he just hoped he could keep their trust in him intact. 

Trust is a fragile thing in the hands of a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read but especially those of you who left comments, you all are wonderful ✿


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